


suicide patrol

by orphan_account



Category: Torchwood
Genre: Canonical Character Death, Episode: s02e08 A Day in the Death, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-12-13
Updated: 2012-12-13
Packaged: 2017-11-21 00:17:16
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,056
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/591310
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>She doesn't want anyone to die. (or, the story of a woman left behind.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	suicide patrol

**Author's Note:**

> set sometime between "exit wounds" and "children of earth". directly references events in "a day in the death", and the main character is a one-off from that episode, so you probably want to make sure you know that one.

It takes a very long time, but eventually, the lights stop shining. She looks at him. "So."  
  
"...yeah." The spirals of violet trail into the night; the beauty falls into black. He puts the source of the gorgeous light show back in his bag. "It's amazing."  
  
"It's bloody brilliant," she answers, then pauses. "You know, you saved my life. Can't I at least buy you a drink?"  
  
He shrugs. "You can, but I can't drink it." He taps his stomach. "Digestive system's shut down. Tried drinking once the other day. It didn't end well."  
  
She nods thoughtfully. "Makes sense."  
  
It's some strange unspoken agreement that leads them to walk off the roof of the building and into the stairwell below together. The same silent pact follows them as they begin to wander the streets of Cardiff.  
  
\--  
  
Maggie Hopley kicks at the loose peebles in front of her. It's been a while since she's actually thought about Owen in great detail, but walking where they'd been walking together not too long ago is making her relive those moments.  
  
 _Owen._  What could he be doing now? Maggie sighs. It's a little scary that she's thinking so obsessively, but she can't stop it. She wants to know what happened to the man who saved her life.  
  
Almost automatically, her worry makes her reach for her jacket pocket; her hand hasn't even brushed the denim before she remembers. She sighs again- quitting may benefit her in the long run, but  _God,_  even months later, it's times like this when she wishes she had a cigarette.  
  
Looking down at the street, she kicks another pebble.  
  
\--  
  
"So what's it like?" she asks, looking at him.  
  
He looks back at her. "Dying?"  
  
She rolls her eyes. "Not ready to find out about  _that."_  A shudder passes through her as she thinks about how close she was to discovering first-hand what happens. Automatically her hand delves into her pocket and pulls out a cigarette; sticking it in her mouth, her other hand finds the lighter. She takes a long drag before continuing. "Hunting  _aliens!_  God, the universe is  _huge-_  you must get loads of different ones!"  
  
To her surprise, he shakes his head. "Of all the aliens we could get, we always seem to get the bloody Weevils. We get others, but it always seems to be the Weevils."  
  
She laughs and kicks a pebble at her feet. "So even going after aliens gets boring if you do it long enough?"  
  
Out of the corner of her eye, she sees him grin. "Doesn't everything?"  
  
\--  
  
For the very first time, Maggie finds herself disagreeing with what Owen said that night. Not everything gets boring. She never gets tired of Suicide Patrol.  
  
The thought of her sort-of-like-a-job jars her back to reality. Habit kicks in, and she tilts her head back. She can't see anyone on the building above her, but that doesn't mean nobody's there. Making a mental note to check back, Maggie casts her gaze across the street- and jerks back like she's been slapped.  
  
Across the street from her, on the roof of a building, there's a silhouette of somebody probably ready to jump.  
  
As quickly as she can without being stupidly dangerous, Maggie whips her head from side to side as she charges across the street. There's a series of fire escape ladders up the side, which make everything a lot easier. After taking a moment to ensure that she has her bag- and her prized possession- she closes her hands around two of the metal rods.  
  
"Don't worry," she whispers as she begins to climb along the cold black metal. "Suicide Patrol is coming for you."  
  
\--  
  
"You know what?" He stops walking, and she stops, too. He reaches into his bag and pulls out the red shell. "I think you should have this."  
  
Tentatively, she reaches out her hands to take it, then stops. "Wait a minute, are you allowed to be doing this?"  
  
"Define  _allowed."_  There's a smile on his face.  
  
"Is that a no?"  
  
"Well, if allowed means 'totally illegally', then yes, I am most definitely allowed to give this to you." She tries to pull her hands back, but he firmly places the alien artifact in her grip.  
  
The idea that it's not legal makes her squirm. "I don't know if I-"  
  
"Oh, come  _on,"_  he answers, rolling his eyes. "No, it's not legal, but you  _saw_  what this thing can do! You saw it yourself, Maggie. And if I take it back, it'll end up... I dunno, sitting on a shelf somewhere, or hidden away in some old vault. Not doing what it's meant to." He must see a specter of irresolution in her face, because he closes her fingers around the Pulse. "Please, Maggie. I know you can do something brilliant with it."  
  
She sighs. "Oh, all right," she mutters.  
  
His face breaks into a brilliant grin. "Yes!" Then he frowns. "Of course, I'm going to have one hell of a time figuring out a cover story for why I don't have it. Jack is going to murder me."  
  
\--  
  
Maggie clambers to the top of the building as delicately as one can clamber. The person at the top is wearing a long, old-fashioned-looking coat. After a moment of watching the figure, she decides it's a man.  
  
Ghostly quiet from practice, so she doesn't startle him into jumping off, Maggie walks up so she's standing by the man's side. "It's beautiful at night," she says quietly.  
  
The man, who is  _much_  taller than her, looks down. He doesn't seemed surprised by her appearance, just slightly bemused. "I guess it is."  
  
"So..." There's only so many elegant ways to ask what she wants to ask, but she's learned that it's a better idea to be less elegant. "Are you going to jump?"  
  
He shrugs. "Are  _you?"_  
  
It's such a bizarre question- one that she's never been asked before- that Maggie can't help but laugh. "Not me! I'm not like that."  
  
The man raises an eyebrow. Some old, almost-dead part of her recognizes his good looks; it takes the usual millisecond to remind that part of her that she was married and, if fate were the smallest bit kinder, she still would be, and thus should not think like that. After a moment of scrutiny, he asks, "Why else would you come up here?"  
  
Maggie looks out at the city again. "I'm not suicidal. I'm the city's one-woman Suicide Patrol."  
  
This seems to pique the man's interest, and for some strange reason, Maggie begins to feel like she's seen him before. "Suicide Patrol?"  
  
"I was going to kill myself and someone saved my life," she answers quietly. "I'm just passing it on."  
  
The man smiles- not a happy smile, by any means, but a cold, bitter smile. "It's a nice thought."  
  
Maggie grins. "And it's not just a flop. I've saved seventeen different people, eighteen different times."  
  
Some real warmth enters the smile now. "Then I guess you're doing something right."  
  
\--  
  
One week after her not-quite-a-suicide, she's roaming town. She'll never admit it, but she might just be looking for the man who saved her life.  
  
It's strange, how sometimes you think you see someone you know, but it's too fast to actually tell. Such is the case as she looks out into the throngs of people and stares.  
  
He's standing there. She's sure of it. She's never been surer of anything in his life. It's him.  
  
With the kind of skill that can only be acquired by years of practice, he begins moving through the crowd. She wonders if he's chasing an alien. There's another man with him, behind him. It looks like he's covering his back.  
  
For a split second, she thinks he sees her. And then she knows he's seen her, because either it's a trick of a light or he just winked at her.  
  
He definitely remembers her.  
  
\--  
  
Now, much later, Maggie examines the man's face and grins. "I've seen you!" she exclaims, delighted that she figured it out, and even more delighted that she knows who he is. "I saw you! You were with Owen!"  
  
Instantly the man's face is taut. "You know Owen?"  
  
She nods. "He's the one who saved  _my_  life. I thought he was there to jump, but he was just there to help."  
  
As tight as his face is, a sort of pained smile pulls the corners of his lips up. "That's such a  _doctor_  thing to do."  
  
"Is he all right?" Maggie asks anxiously. "I mean, is he-"  
  
"Owen Harper is dead." The words are blunt but sharp; they knock the wind right out of Maggie's sails.  
  
"But that's impossible," she protests weakly, somehow knowing that it's completely possible and probably even happened. "He's already dead..."  
  
"Nuclear waste." He drops his gaze. "It turned his body to dust."  
  
"Oh." She takes this moment to replay every single instant of Owen Harper in her head. He saved her life.  _He saved her life._  
  
"Although, I'm interested to know how you knew he was already  _dead."_  The man says this sharply enough that Maggie is certain that Owen wasn't supposed to be spreading the news.  
  
Springing to his defense, she snaps, "He was trying to make a point, and it's a damn good thing he did, or else there would've been obituaries for those seventeen people, and one for me, too!"  
  
The man seems to deflate. "God," he mumbles. "Owen Harper, saving lives even after he goes through a nuclear meltdown. That's just like him."  
  
"What's your name?" Maggie asks, desperately trying to lighten the mood. This is already the least normal Suicide Patrol mission she's ever embarked on; the very last thing she wants is for this to become the saddest, too.  
  
"Jack Harkness," he answers with a sigh. "I guess he didn't talk about me?"  
  
"Oh, he talked about you." She smiles. "I just wanted to be sure. I'm Maggie Hopley, by the way." Then another memory hits her-  _Jack is going to murder me-_  and she smiles sheepishly. "Oh... I guess that you'll want this." She reaches both hands into her bag and pulls out the Pulse.  
  
Jack's eyes seem to pop out of his head. "So he didn't bury that thing underwater like he said?"  
  
The idea of Owen actually saying that makes Maggie laugh. "No, he gave it to me." She strokes the thing in her arms. "I'm sure this is the only reason there's not seventeen obituaries. I bet I didn't make a difference, not one bit." Now she frowns. "I suppose you'll want it back, then?"  
  
"Actually, it's saving lives. That's better than what I would've done. I think you need to keep it." Jack smiles, but the bitterness is back. "Maggie Hopley. Do great things, Maggie."  
  
She doesn't need to turn around to know that he's leaving. She doesn't even try to stop him. That would be wrong, in some strange way. She can't follow him.  
  
So without even looking at Jack's retreating back, Maggie sits down and strokes the Pulse. It seems to purr in her hands, like it knows she's not going to hurt it or give it up.  
  
"You've saved seventeen different lives," she whispers, then abruptly wonders:  _Does Jack make eighteen?_  
  
The question comes out of nowhere; it's like a slap in the face that sends her reeling. Had she just saved another life? If she had, why doesn't she have the wonderful warm, glowing feeling that she normally gets after rescuing one more person?  
  
"Seventeen," Maggie repeats, letting the names and faces roll through her mind. "Barry, Sadie, Liz, Cara, Marcus, Dexter, Abigail, Zeke, Cara  _again-"_  she can't help but recall her utter shock at seeing the beautiful green-eyed girl twice- "Edmund, Jasmine, Irma, Ozzie, Harriet, Garrett, Richie, Tamara, and Will." She looks down at the Pulse. "Should I be adding Jack to that list?"  
  
The Pulse seems to shake in her hands.  
  
"You're right," she murmurs. "I don't think he was  _really_  going to kill himself. Maybe he just liked the view."  
  
The Pulse judders yet again. Maggie has to marvel at how just a short while ago, she was going to kill herself; now she's sitting on a roof with an alien artifact.  _Talking_  with an alien artifact. And the funny thing is, it seems to answer.  
  
"You know what?" she demands suddenly, standing up. "We shouldn't just be sitting here! There are probably still people out there ready to jump!" Tucking the Pulse under her arm, Maggie grins. "Come on- there are lives to save!"  
  
If she wasn't concentrating so hard on seeing if that  _was_  a human figure on the building across the street, she'd notice that the Pulse is purring in her hands.  
  
\--  
  
The last time Maggie Hopley sees Owen Harper, she's in a Starbucks.  
  
She's sitting at the window, and she has her biscotti and her cappuchino, and damn if it doesn't feel like just another day in the life of the-formerly-Mrs-but-now-just-a-Miss Maggie Hopley. At one point she would've said it was enough to make her want to kill herself. Now, she would rather say it's enough to make her cry. Suicide jokes aren't funny anymore.  
  
It's with a heavy heart that she chomps off the end of her biscotti and takes a long drink from her coffee. She sighs-  _God,_  she could use a smoke right now, but Starbucks'll kick her out, and in any case she's trying to quit.  
  
Maggie takes another bite of the biscotti and looks out the window, idly watching the people bustle past. She wonders if they have kids, jobs, stories even worse than hers. She wonders about each and every soul out there, and it's now that she realizes that she's really changed since that night.  
  
Another bite. She stares glumly at the coffee. "God," she mutters, "if you're out there, send me a sign that tonight won't be a mistake." It's the closest thing she's uttered to a prayer in a year. And why not? She's nervous. It's a big night- but will it be for the right reasons?  
  
She swallows an even larger mouthful of coffee- hot enough to scorch her tongue on the way down, just a bit- and she looks out the window.  
  
And stops.  
  
And stares.  
  
At Owen.  
  
The coffee very nearly comes back up.  
  
"Oh, my  _God,"_  she gasps, and is rewarded by the sight of recognition flickering in his gaze. He remembers her.  
  
In the same fast, fluid moves she'd seen that last day in the crowd, Owen turns and is in the Starbucks at her table within moments. "Maggie."  
  
She grins, but it's a little shaky. "How's life?" she offers, blurting out the very first horrifically bad joke that comes to mind.  
  
Owen groans. "You'd think that I'd've heard that one by now, with the people I work with, but  _God,_  that one was bad."  
  
"Okay. How's...  _limbo?"_  Her eyes flit to the bandage and cast on his hand. "Cause you're not really  _dead,_  are you?"  
  
"Limbo is fine. Bit boring sometimes, but it gets better." He shrugs, and then his eyes alight with curiosity. "Hey, about the Pulse-"  
  
"I still have it," she answers, dunking the last piece of biscotti in cappuchino.  
  
Owen nods. "But... are you using it?"  
  
Maggie looks up at him. "Sorta," she mumbles.  
  
"And 'sorta' means?" he presses.  
  
"Tonight," she answers firmly. "Tonight is going to be different."  
  
"Why?" he asks, clearly interested, possibly despite having alien-hunting to do.  
  
"Suicide Patrol," Maggie says, a smile on her face as she takes a swig from the slowly-depleting coffee.  
  
"Suicide Patrol?" Owen repeats.  
  
"Yeah, it's this idea I had. See,  _loads_  of people kill themselves every day, and  _loads_  of them are probably in Cardiff. And I was thinking, that night, you saved my life. I bet I would've jumped if you hadn't come." Almost involuntarily shee shudders at the thought, but continues. "But there are so many people, people who need someone to come and save them, like you did."  
  
"Oh," Owen breathes, probbly predicting where she's headed.  
  
"So tonight, I'm going out with the Pulse and looking for someone, someone who needs help. Anyone."  
  
"And you'll see if you can stop them," he finishes.  
  
"Exactly!" she says, getting swept up in her own excitement. "I need to see if i can save lives. Because I can't stand the idea of people like  _me."_  
  
"Maggie Hopley, you are bloody  _brilliant!"_  Owen exclaims. "I can't believe nobody ever-"  
  
The electronic trills of a cell phone interrupt them; looking sheepish, Owen pulls a mobile out of his pocket. "Sorry," he mouths as he opens it. "Hello?"  
  
Maggie doesn't really pay attention to the half of the conversation she can hear. She knows how it's going to end- and sure enough, a moment later, he pulls the mouthpiece back, so the person on the other end can't hear him. "Work," he says, quiet and quick. "Have to run, but good to see you didn't change your mind."  
  
She only manages a smile before he adds, "Good luck, tonight. Remember to use the Pulse." He grins and then turns, out into the street, running towards what's probably going to be a great new adventure.  
  
Owen and Maggie never see each other again.  
  
\--  
  
Maggie's trying to discern a possible human shape when she hears footsteps. She turns, expecting Jack, and sees something even better.  
  
"Edmund! Cara!" she says, delighted at seeing two of her previous saves together. "What're you two doing?"  
  
Cara, looking just as beautiful as she did the last two times Maggie saw her, steps forward. "We were wondering if... we could come with you?" Her voice rises in a question; Edmund grins at her. Maggie takes a moment to recall- they'd been one right after the other, both saying something about a breakup, and then Cara had gone and apologized for wanting to die again. She looks speculatively between the two, who seem connected in a way that Maggie hasn't seen since the day her beautiful ice-white dress turned crimson.  
  
"Of course," she answers, grinning. "I'd love to have you."  
  
"Oh," Edmund adds, "who was that man we passed on the way up here? Did you save him?"  
  
Maggie looks back out at the lights. "Nah," she answers. "He wasn't going to jump. I'm sure."


End file.
